Fortunately, May opens with some beautiful blessings that set the tone for a month whose theme is abundance, fertility, new growth, beginnings, and the earth. Named after the Greek goddess Maia, the month of May is the start of the growing season so its focus is blooming, and brings upon fresh starts.
May is a month of options, opportunities, and outstanding results when we stay aligned with our highest intentions, stay focused on our creative powers to move and manage energy, to not focus on fear, and remember that we are here to live in joy so make each moment a joyful one. Use your powers of appreciation to raise the vibe and keep your lights shining. Have a wonderful month!!
Grab your crew and host the hottest awards party of the year with an Oscar-themed party. The Academy Awards show is an exciting day for just about everyone, from the movie enthusiast to even the casual movie-goer. All you need are a few Oscar party ideas to make your night just as grand.
Here are FIVE Oscar Party Ideas
Serve Fancy Oscar Eats!
Serve plenty of appetizers, like gourmet popcorn in cute buckets, bruschetta, and tiny fruit parfaits. An Oscar party is the perfect excuse to go all out with a charcuterie board. (If you’re short on time, Trader Joe’s sells a wide variety of frozen appetizers that look as good as they taste). Stick with the Oscars color scheme and use black and gold plates, cups, napkins, and utensils.
Give out Oscars to your Guests
Join in on the fun and give out Academy Awards of your own! Use ballots and envelopes just like the real deal, and make sure everyone gets their nominations in at the beginning of the party. Choose a few popular nominees and come up with some trivia questions about each one. You can also incorporate questions about past winners as well, to be fair to those who haven’t seen all of the recent films. Offer prizes to the winners, such as movie tickets, movie memorabilia, gourmet candy, or DVDs/Blu-rays.
Dress Up!
Break out the formal gowns, suits, tuxedos, heels, and dress shoes. If you’ve got a fun-loving crowd, go for eclectic looks a la Met Gala for a fun twist. Complete your looks with bold lipstick, jewelry, and elegant hairstyles. Encourage everyone to participate in dressing up by having a competition for the title of “Best Dressed.”
Make Movie Magic Drinks
Create some Hollywood- inspired cocktails themed after the nominated movies or past winners. If you have kids at the party, classic virgin drinks like Shirley Temples and Roy Rogers are perfect!) Also, champagne is a must. You can even give everyone their own mini bottles for the party. The right drinks will enhance the evening and add a sophisticated vibe everyone will appreciate.
Take Fun Pictures
All you need are a few fun props like boas and movie scene markers, and you have a fun activity to keep guests entertained before the show begins!
Have a great time and hope you are inspired to have a few friends, a few laughs and cheer on your favorite movies!
In today’s yoga class, the teacher suggested that the class set an intention for our yoga practice. The intention was something to come back to, to keep the focus, to take everyone deeper into themselves.
This new year, Gratitude is key for New Year’s intentions. Consider setting a bigger, more comprehensive intention: one to keep you on track for the entire year. New Year’s intentions may be as straightforward as committing to a daily yoga practice, sadhana, to complete a teacher training, or maybe to change some aspect of your lifestyle. You may want to think of your New Year’s intention as a type of New Year’s resolution, emanating from a place of gratitude and self-care.
Gratitude is a multiplier, look for gratitude in all that you have, whatever it is that you feel grateful to, will continue to manifest in your life. Tap into the energy of the heart center, and allow yourself to FEEL the energy that flows from the heart.
Kundalini Yoga offers some wonderful meditations that you can practice to open yourself up to gratitude, and to trust your divine self. One of my favorites is to chant Guru Guru Wahe Guru .
Trust the Divine Self is a fabulous Meditation for bringing in the attitude of gratitude. Sit in easy pose with a straight spine so that you can practice to open yourself up to gratitude, and to trust your divine self. Meditation: Trust the Divine Self
While Christmas music playlists often include favorites like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” there are also a handful of tracks that go a deeper.
Listen to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” or “White Christmas,” and you’ll hear a deep yearning to be home for the holidays especially when having to spend the holidays somewhere else.
December is filled with Christmas rituals – the TV specials, Live Rockefeller Christmas Lightning, the gifts, the lights, the music, fireplace, hot chocolate, snow, and what remains is home. It is the beating heart of the holiday, and its importance reflects our primal need to have a meaningful relationship with a setting, a place that transcends the boundary between the self and the physical world.
Intuition is always with us, it is part of our human nature and mind. Working with your intuition and continually practicing using it will strengthen your ability to engage it when you need it.
Sometimes the holidays take us away from our usual routine, which is a good thing, it keeps our minds on our toes with the opportunity to experience something new. Just enjoying your physical senses, seeing, feeling, and hearing the holiday sights, and sounds without any thoughts or judgment exercises your awareness of your intuitive side. See what it recalls in you. This is how intuition comes to us, it pops up and is plain without criticism and just presents itself as it is. You may also enjoy yourself more to take this mini break from the hustle and rush of the holiday season.
You can also use holiday get-togethers to intuitively connect to someone. Take the time when conversing with friends for the family to receive not only what you hear when they speak, but what you feel and sense. Allow yourself to be the witness, the observer, and pay attention to yourself as the listener. You may be surprised at what pops up inside you when you are just present during the conversation and tuned in. This allows you to absorb so much more of what someone is sharing with you beyond their words.
When you’re shopping for a gift during the holidays you can use your intuition to help you choose the best one. Sometimes you may not be sure of what someone would like if you don’t know them well, or you know them too well it may be challenging to know that perfect gift. Here’s how you can use your intuition to help. Say you’re in the store and shopping for a clothing accessory for a friend but you’re not quite sure which color or style they would like. Among the choices in front of you, imagine your friend wearing each one and ask your intuition in your mind which one, choose the good-feeling ones, and use your eyes and your heart.
There are so many wonderful holiday displays, pictures, photographs, and sights that are a feast for your eyes. When you look pay attention to how it makes your heart sing or stir up some wonderful emotions. It’s a great intuition exercise! This all allows your intuition mind to give you impressions. You’ll probably intuitively discover things you didn’t realize before!
Enjoying the holidays is a fun way to exercise your intuition.
Tis almost the season for gingerbread cookies, a Christmas tradition. We think of “traditional” Christmas flavors like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, and those are exactly the same spices medieval cooks would have used in their cookies ages ago. Gingerbread is a classic Christmas cookie, and yet it’s also a cookie that would have tasted strikingly similar back in the Middle Ages.
Winter solstice festivals have been held for eons, across the world. From Norway to West Africa, Ireland to India, groups of people gathered to celebrate the changing of the seasons. Celebrations revolved around food; after all, you had to feast before the famine of the winter.
By the Middle Ages, the Christmas holiday had overtaken solstice rituals throughout much of present-day Europe. The old feast traditions remained. And while the roast and drink recipes were probably quite similar to what earlier Europeans had enjoyed, the pastry world was experiencing some amazing changes. Spices like nutmeg, cinnamon and black pepper were just starting to be widely used, and dried exotic fruits like citron, apricots and dates added sweetness and texture to the dessert tray. These items, along with ingredients like sugar and butter, would have been prized as expensive delicacies by medieval cooks. Only on the most important holiday could families afford treats like these, which led to a baking bonanza to prepare for Christmas. And unlike pies or cakes, cookies could be easily shared and given to friends and neighbors. Our modern Christmas cookies date back to these medieval gifts.
Festive and fun gingerbread cookies are what we are baking today. These gingerbread men are crisp on the outside , soft on the inside and packed with ginger and everything Christmas.
Choose thoughts that make you happy now. Whether these are joyful memories, thoughts of appreciation about the present, or thoughts anticipating wonderful things to come, any thought that makes you happy puts you in touch with the love that is ever-present in the moment.
When traditions and memories inspire a sense of happiness within you now, enjoy them!
If traditions or memories no longer give you joy or don’t resonate with you now, choose to focus on something different, new, or better.
Your holidays are a celebration of light birthed in darkness. By choosing the thoughts that make you happy now, you birth the light into your life… one day, one thought at a time.
Intuitive Magazine 